The Three Young Men
by Lancetheyoung
Summary: After Crono's death, Magus and Gaspar talk at the End of Time.


Hey, there, Hi there, Ho there. It's me, Lance. I've written another Chrono Trigger story. This one isn't as humorous as my Christmas story, but I like to think it ends on a funny note. This is mostly just me speculating on Gaspar and Magus's relationship from when they were in Zeal. Please tell me what you think. Enjoy.

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Three Young Men

Magus looked around the end of time. Everybody was asleep. Some, like Marle, had cried themselves to sleep, others just submitted to wearyness. He was used to staying awake for long periods of time, plus he needed more time to meditate as to what had happened recently. Something suddenly caught his eye. The old man was stirring.

"Mmm..." He said, coming out of his sleep... "They're all back then, those young people... One, two, three, four... There's one missing... that's odd, there's the right amount of people... But where's that one boy?"

"You've noticed, I see."

Magus stood up, and walked toward the old man, who remained leaning on the lightpost. The geezer turned and looked him over.

"Oh, they brought along a new one! Hello, young sir, I... I say, have we met?"

Magus examained the old man carefully, "I don't think so."

The old man shrugged, "Ah, well. Must be one of those things. Say, where's that young man that was around here?"

"Young man?"

"You know," The old man made gestures around his head, "The boy with hair out to here, and who never talked!"

"He died."

"Oh..." The old man bowed his head, "Oh my..."

Magus turned away, "We think we can bring him back, but we need to find the Guru of Time to do that."

The geezer looked up, hopeful, "Any luck?"

The blue-haired one shook his head, "Sorry, but no. Were you close to him?"

"Oh, well... That boy... He was a nice young man, you know. Reminded me of a few others I used to know... Are you sure we've never met?"

Magus turned around and examained the old man more closely, "Sorry. Don't recognize you."  
The old man scratched his head, "Ah, well. I'm sure it's nothing. I'm so sorry about your friend, young sir."

Magus shrugged, "Don't be. I didn't know him too well. Didn't have anything against him, but still... You should be sorry for them." He pointed to Lucca and Marle. "They knew him best, poor kids."

The old man sighed, "It's hard to loose a loved one."

"Don't I know it," Said Magus, leaning against the fence, facing the old man. "I never got over what happened to me after my sister was gone."

The old man peered over toward him, "Sister?"

"Yeah." Magus looked off bitterly, "I just can't believe she's gone. She did so much for me through all my life. Even when-"

"It's you! The boy!"

Magus turned over to him, an eyebrow raised, "Beg pardon?"

"You! The boy! I knew you! I was... Hmm..." The old man began to look thoughtful, as though trying to remember something. "I was... a teacher of yours... something of that nature... Yes... You were that quiet boy..."

Magus straightened up, and leaned forward slightly, squinting at the geezer, "Old man G?"

"That's it!" Said the Old man, letting up off his lightpost and opening his arms, "I knew you were him! That quiet boy! Janus! Janus, that's what you were called!"

Magus walked over to him, looking slightly surprised, "Why didn't you tell me you were Gaspar?"

Gaspar blinked, "Gaspar? Oh yes, Gaspar. That was my name... Sorry son, but it was just so long ago..."

"Nevermind that now," Magus was right in front of him now. "How can we bring back Crono?"  
The old man blinked, "Crono? You mean that other young man? I... wonder... I wonder if I still have it..."

Gaspar looked inside his trenchcoat, digging around for something. Eventually, he pulled out a small silver egg. It sparkled in the light of the lamp-post.

"This is... this is the... um... let's call it the Chrono Trigger until I can remember what its name was... If used in junction with a series of events, and activated at one particular time, at one particular place, it may bring back that friend you miss."

Magus took the egg, and put it in his pocket. "Thanks, Gaspar."

"Don't feel like you need to thank me." said Gaspar, shaking his head, "It only works on certain people, but I'm sure it'll work for somebody as special as he was."

Magus blinked, "Special?"

Gaspar nodded thoughtfully, "Yes... It's rare to find young men quite like you and him... People like them always stuck out to me... Seems like there was one other though... who might that have been?"

He began to mutter to himself a bit. Magus walked over to the fence that acted as a barrier from the nothingness around the End Of Time. He sat down and used it as something to put his back on, one of his knees bent, one stretched out.

Gaspar looked up suddenly, "That uh... Sister you spoke of, was she that girl? Smiling child. Blue hair in a pony-tail. Good healing magic..."

"Yeah..." Magus looked over into space. "Yeah, that was her..."

The old man looked over at him, "She's not dead, is she?"

The young man kept looking into space and said, in a weary, depressed voice, "I don't know..."

Gaspar smiled, walked over, and patted him on the back, "Hey now, son. Don't be so depressed. I'm sure she's just fine. Probably waiting for you."

Magus sighed and looked at the ground, "I've been telling myself that for so long now. When you do that, you have a hard time to keep believing it..."

Gaspar chuckled, his trenchcoat shaking, "Don't be like that now, son. Otherwise they'll wait forever. Just like with that other boy Crono."

The mage turned around and looked at the old man, "Crono?"

"That's right." Gaspar nodded. "He's somewhere too, waiting for you and the rest of his friends to save him, to use that Egg and bring him back to this plane."

Magus smiled slightly and stood up, "Thanks, Old man. Maybe I will find my sister..."

Gaspar chuckled and put his arm around the boy, walking with him to the lamp-post, "Heh, you do that boy, you find her. But uh, are you sure she's your sister? Seems like she was your mother..."

Magus blinked, "No, she was my sister. Don't you remember my mother?"

The old man put a hand on his chin in thought, "Your mother?"

Magus gave him an inquisitive look, "You can't tell me you forgot about her. Heavy make-up. High-heels. Short temper. Greedy bitch of a woman."

Gaspar shook his head, "Nope. Doesn't ring a bell."

The mage sighed, "This place has really done a number on you. It's like I'm talking to a guy with Alzheimers."

Gaspar leaned against his lamp-post again, "So she wasn't your mother, then?"

Magus took out his scythe and put his weight on it casually, "Well, she always did fill that role as a mother-figure as our mom didn't really care for me, the inferior son..."

The old man nodded, "Oh yes. You didn't really have magic, did you? Some things sure do change."

Magus looked on thoughtfully, "She kept dragging me go see you three geezers, hoping that I could be able to do some kind of spell, but I kept telling her it was useless."

Gaspar put his hand to his chin again, "And what of your father? I think I remember him dying... Some national wake... or was that somebody else..."

The mage shrugged, "I don't remember, the man died before I was born."

"Oh, I see..." Said Gaspar, lowering his head, "So you never really had a father..."

Magus just sort of smiled, "You were there..."

Gaspar was quiet for a minute, "You better rest up for tomarrow. Then you can bring your friend back."

Magus walks back to the fence and leans on it, quickly falling asleep again. Gaspar leans onto his own lamppost again, expecting to fall asleep himself, but oddly enough, he remains awake. Something is stirring in his thoughts...

"I was the boy's father? Father figure?... Is that right? It seems like he was my son... I fancied myself the father of the other boy, too... why is that... why do I... oh..."

Gaspar bowed his head for a minute, "Oh... the third young man... was my son... my poor, poor, son... that poor boy..."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The festival was in prepartation for its grand finale. The streamers were being hung everywhere, and people were running about, worrying over whether or not the lights would come on at the appropriate time. Taban was being paid quite a bundle to help the electricians out.

Crono had been walking his mother to the fountain in the square's center, when he heard it...

"You! Boy!"

He turned suddenly, to see, right by Lucca's teleporter, Gaspar, gesturing to him to come to him.

"Yeah, you! I've got something to say!"

Crono shrugged and walked over to him. Looking around, he could see that Magus was standing over to the side. A gate was open behind the old man in the trench, presumeably leading back to the End Of Time.

The old man looked back and forth between his two companions and smiled, "I just wanted to say goodbye to you two boys..."

Magus smiled slightly, "Yeah, until we meet again, Old Man G..."

Crono nodded and slauted the guru.

Gaspar bowed his head slightly and took off his glasses, "You uh... you both mean alot to me..." He paused, leaning his head up and looking at the night sky, "There a reason y'know, as to why I made the Chrono Trigger..."

Magus looked over at the old man from his spot leaning on the wall.

"I think the reason you both meant so much to me," said Gaspar, "Is because you reminded me of my son..."

While Crono blinked, Magus gave Gaspar an inquisitive look, "I never knew you had a son."

The old man lowered his head again, "He was... he was so important to me..., We did so much together... But he had such an passion for hunting and chasing the monsters that were on Mount Woe. One very foggy day in autumn, he went to wrestle with the yellow horned beasts that would be found on that mountain. I remember him joking while he was climbing up the chain... and that was the last time anybody ever saw him..."

Magus put his hand to his chin, "Hmmmm... Schala would say how strange things would happen to people who went onto Mount Woe. Some would come back untouched, while others would be addled claiming that they saw the devil himself. Sometimes people's bodies just fall into Earthbound Village, some horribly disfigured."

Gaspar brought his hand up to his face, "Norstein was one of the ones that was never seen again... It was a cursed place, that Mountain. The emotions absorbed in the stone during the Great Rebellion were too potent to be forgotten. So many young people went up there, believing that climbing the mountain and fighting the beasts to be the ultimate test of bravery and manliness... But Norstein really just did it because he liked to hunt..."

Gaspar trailed off to silence for a minute, and Crono walked up, putting his arm on his shoulder.

"You both must be..." Gaspar said, in a quivering voice, "So precious to the people around you... They'd all be so hurt if something were to happen to you... That's why it's such a good thing that the Chrono Trigger worked... What would your mother say if you could not return from death, my boy?"

Crono looked at the ground as Gaspar continued, "I tried to use the egg on my son, but it somehow failed to work for him..."

There was a long silence between the three of them. Gaspar eventually rose his head again, put his glasses back on, and turned to walk through the Gate...  
"Dad?"

He turned suddenly, looking at a point beyond the two young heroes.

"Norstein!"

Hovering between the large walls seperating the teleportation exhibit from the rest of the fair, were a disembodied pair of hands and a human head.

"Dad? Is it really you?"

Magus looked over at the strange being, a surprised look on his face, "Aren't you that scientist who sold us the Crono Clone?"

Ignoring the mage, Gaspar ran over to the floating body parts, "Norstein, dear God, I thought I'd never see you again..."

"Ummm, Dad..." Said the head, floating away to get a look at the old man, "Where did you get those clothes?"

Gaspar smiled widely, "The End of Time. Would you like to see it?"

"Sure Dad," Said Norstein, "We've got alot of catching up to do."

Gaspar put his arm around what would've been Norstein's shoulder and led him to the gate. As soon as his son steped through, Gaspar stopped and chuckled, "So he was really just waiting for me..."

Magus was still giving off a "What-the-hell-just-happened" look, "Gaspar, this may come off as a strange question, but what exactly happened to the rest of your son's body?"

Ignoring him, the old man kept smiling, "You both have people waiting for you, too..." He then went into the portal and vanished, leaving Crono and Magus alone.

Crono turned to Magus looking like he wanted an explaination.

Magus shrugged, "Maybe it'd be better not to ask..."

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There you go. A nice little story, wasn't it? If you think so, or even if you don't, please leave a reveiw. I'd love to hear from you...


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